


Star of England

by redletters



Category: Henry V - Shakespeare
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-24
Updated: 2015-08-24
Packaged: 2018-04-16 22:22:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4642254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redletters/pseuds/redletters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Falstaff! Falstaff had been an anachronism, a dozy giant who'd never once left England's orbital pull. Falstaff didn't know how thin and rosy-hued the air was on Flanders, or what the Balearics looked like when you broke through the atmosphere of Playa Valencia, nor did he care. England, the lovely green planet ringed around with silver asteroids, was world enough for him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Star of England

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Gileonnen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/gifts).



Hal loved to fly. To feel the world peeling away behind him, into the blackness of space, shooting out to where no one could bother him and he was suspended in the great void like a drop on God's ear. He was beginning to hate coming back, hate his father for looking anxious, hate his brothers for looking tired. If his life-support didn't need recharging every four days he didn't know if he'd ever dock again. He didn't have to think in space, or act one way or another: he could just be Hal, nothing for anyone, himself for himself.

Today was an especially good day to not be at Westminster, though he could almost feel the grand old station slowly roaring into place behind him. The great council was meeting today, and even if he'd wanted to see his dad - which he didn't - he'd have to have opinions on tax revenues, the clergy, and redistribution to the North Outlier stations - which he also didn't. He almost wanted to keep pushing, strip his ship's ID tags and leave the next governing to his brother John or little yapping Harry Hotspur, but the idea wouldn't stick in his heart, not really; he knew who he needed to be.

Just not today.

Hal checked the chronodar and pointed his ship back to England. The stars oriented themselves around him, a feeling he always liked. If he was good – and Hal knew he was good – he could make the refuel run to the Boar's Head before the sun came up.

The Boar's Head was a dinged-up tinny stop a short hop from Westminster on the jump out to Calais; most flyers blew past it and went to the official royal refueller at Greenwich, a shining, synthesised palace of a space station. The Red Lion was pasted over the White Hart now, but it was still the same linked chain, circling England and the colonies, distributing equipment, keeping order, and watching everything - or almost everything.

Hal almost missed the White Hart. Sure, the Red Lion got the job done, and you never had to worry about running out of juice halfway to Cornwall because the Head decided to spend that week's equipment budget on fireworks instead of fuel. But you knew what you got from the White Hart would be impressive, even if it was completely unreliable: oddly beautiful and strange. He'd watched the fireworks when he was a boy. Now his dad spent the money on tax breaks for station burghers.

The inn hove into view on Hal's horizon in a haze of dusky red - he was making good time. The Boar's Head was one of the only planetside inns left, built before they'd moved to post-atmosphere stops - and even better, Quickly's ancient parking pods didn't have the equipment to scan ship tags. It was a good place to go when you didn't want to be easily found, which for Hal was most of the time.

Hal docked in one of the empty bays, and waited for the pod to depressurise before opening the ship door with a hiss. He swung out of the pilot's seat and knelt down to check the refuel chargers were lined up - then tossed his helmet back into the cockpit, slammed the door and half-ran down the corridor towards the bar room. He wanted to start forgetting who he was.

 

***

 

Now, of course, Hal could never be seen at a place like the Boar's Head. The royal carriage could never be checked in anywhere so rough. Not like the subtle little machine he'd flown when he was just a prince - not that he had the time to return, or the itch. John had been right, he reflected ruefully, giving up sack was like getting life back. It was colder and more precise, but so was Hal.

The first year of his reign had disappeared in a tour of the provincial stations, checking in, putting things right, watching to see who was watching him. One in particular seemed worth paying attention to; Hal called on Masham on Yorkshire and Cambridge, and was satisfied with what he saw there. He left instructions behind him.

He lifted out and set a course flying clear and straight towards Westminster. Today would be busy: he had to receive the French ambassadors, the clergy would be waiting to hear about their grants, there had been rumours Navarre wanted to negotiate a marriage alliance - Hal flashed on Poins, briefly, which was odd because he hadn't thought about him since, that was, the last time he was here-

"What time of day is it, lad?" Falstaff interrupted.

Hal was about to turn and tell him that was a stupid question, that there was no such thing as time in space, and if he wanted to know how long til the bar opened, he should just ask that. But then he remembered that Falstaff wasn't in the cockpit with him, he had set off alone. Then he remembered that Falstaff was dead.

The old man's voice hung in the small space as if he'd called it in Hal's ear - which he had done, many times, in life. Hal reached out carefully and disengaged manual piloting, very carefully.

This wasn't unheard of.

His father had talked about something like this.

The voice of Richard, the White Hart, had followed the old king through the corridors of Westminster, long, long after he'd been sent off to the penal colony. The Old King Henry had thought, he told his sons, that it had something to do with the air of England. It remembered, he told his eldest son, it would remember what you did there - so behave well, or go elsewhere to behave poorly. But no one else ever heard Richard, even after Henry woke them up in the middle of the night rest and made them peel open the walls to check the integrated comms system; and Hal and his brothers had privately agreed it was more likely to do with the sleep-aid their father had started taking, which they weren't supposed to know about.

Hal didn't take sleep-aid and he didn't have anything to be ashamed of, certainly not, except maybe all the years he'd spent deluding himself in pretending he was gathering research, or befriending the people, doing any kind of good work.

And Falstaff! Falstaff had been an anachronism, a dozy giant who'd never once left England's orbital pull. Falstaff didn't know how thin and rosy-hued the air was on Flanders, or what the Balearics looked like when you broke through the atmosphere of Playa Valencia, nor did he care. England, the lovely green planet ringed around with silver asteroids, was world enough for him, and he'd spent most days here, with this little band of odd others who were happy to look over the table, at their drinks, instead of up to the sky, past the world, to the stars.

Hal had loved Falstaff, and tolerated him; and loved the Boar's Head, and hated it for being provincial. What was wrong with them, that they were so content to stay below the white whistle of the atmosphere? He'd spent years with them and never understood it - and now he hardly understood his past self, for expending so long.

He'd get checked out by a doctor when he landed, Hal told himself, and reached for the dial to steer a course far around the Old East End. As he slipped further into the blue-white fuzz of the sky he heard, or thought he heard, a fat man snoring happily.

 


End file.
